14 DAY TRIAL // Although Panasonic announced it would seize operations on the smartphone market, it appears that the company is still launching new devices in India.
India is probably one of the few countries where Panasonic might compete on the mid-range smartphone market thanks to its pretty solid lineup of devices.
Panasonic’s P series of handsets is very popular in India, which is why the handset maker continued to extend this family with new devices every month or so.
The new smartphone that’s been teased by Panasonic for the last couple of days is called P31 and features mid-range specs and a competitive price for the Indian market.
According to fonearena, Panasonic P31 will go on sale in India beginning the second week of March for only Rs 11,990 outright, which is about $195 or €140.
Customers in India will be able to grab the mid-entry Android smartphone in either Bluish Black or Pure White, starting next week. It’s also worth mentioning Panasonic P31 comes bundled with free stuff worth Rs 10,390 ($170 / €120).
The P31 ships with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean operating system out of the box, no surprises here. Aside from that, it comes preloaded with Play Life software features such as Gesture Play, Pop-i Player, Music cafe, and Ultimate Saver.
Panasonic also claims the P31 has been especially designed to be able to reduce the temperature of the device via controlled heat dissipation. No clue if this is really true or just a marketing stunt.
Anyway, Panasonic P31 offers dual-SIM with dual standby capabilities and sports a large 5-inch capacitive touchscreen display. Unfortunately, it only supports 854 x 480 pixels resolution, which is really disappointing for such a big screen, but at least it features Ultra Oleophobic coating that makes it less prone to catching fingerprints.
Hardware-wise, the P31 is armed with a 1.3GHz quad-core processor, most likely provided by MediaTek, as well as 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage. As expected, the smartphone packs microSD card slot for memory expansion (up to 32GB).
There’s also an enhanced 8-megapixel photo snapper on the back, which features autofocus, LED flash and full HD (1080p) video recording. A secondary VGA camera for video calls is included as well.
Panasonic P31 is powered by a high-capacity 2,000 mAh Li-Ion battery, which has yet to be rated by the manufacturer. It also provides a wide range of connectivity options, including HSPA+, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS with A-GPS and FM Radio.